Signal

Aides close to President Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton use app as memory of Wikileaks scandal lingers

Signal, a smartphone app that allows users to send encrypted messages, is gaining popularity in the political world amid rising fears about hacking and surveillance in the wake of a tumultuous election year.

Political aides close to President Donald Trump, former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are users. So are some close to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Some say the legion of political types has a singular goal to avoid a repeat of the WikiLeaks scandal, in which the emails of Mrs. Clinton and her closest allies were dumped onto the internet.

“Everybody learned the lessons of the Clinton campaign when it came to communicating about sensitive issues over email,” one former senior aide to Mr. Obama said. “No one wants to see that happen again.”